Bridging Brexit and the Values Crisis : From Constitutional Resistance to Deliberation?

This paper considers the creation of new deliberative mechanisms to address the EU’s values crisis. The starting point is that recent legal and financial measures may seem to be inducing compliance by Poland and Hungary with EU Rule of Law norms. However, even if these changes are sincere, they will not address the underlying malaise of ideological disagreement. Instead, the paper proposes that the Article 7 TEU mechanism should be reformed to provide a platform for genuine deliberation between all of the Member States, with routes that may lead to EU Treaty amendment, the granting of opt-outs, or pressure upon resistant Member States to consider withdrawal under Article 50 TEU.